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Monday, April 29, 2013

Drumstick Sambar

I know each one of you are going to laugh your lungs out reading
this post. The first disastrous dish I
prepared for my FIL & hubby. When I
read the event hosted by RafeedaI though it was the perfect time for me to post this. Thank you Rafeeda.

Sambar is one of the very
most important and simple curry which is prepared in any South Indian
house. Goes very well with rice, idli, dosa, vada the list is never ending.

I was out from college and the next day I picked up a job, so
helping mom with household work was my job, never ventured into the kitchen for
cooking as mom never wanted us to do it.

I was 23 when I got married, after few days my FIL said
why don’t you make sambar for lunch.
First entry to the kitchen as so
many days my FIL cooked for us as I was not lucky enough to see my MIL as she was
not alive. My FIL at his 70’s was pretty good in cooking. I could not say NO to him and I thought it was a very simple task to make
the sambar, with little bit of doubts I wanted to call and ask mom but no
phone and no mobile, no internet also those days. All I remembered was seeing the plate in
which mom gave the masala to grind at
home, so I remembered all the
ingredients although not perfectly the right proportions.

I planned to make sambar with drumstick and ladies finger. I fried
all the masala and kept aside to let it cool so that I could grind to a fine
paste.

On the other side I cut the
drumstick and started to boil, put the fried ladies finger and cooked with salt. Then added the masala at this time I realized
the sambar is still watery. Then I realized
that I had forgotten to put the tur dal,
just took a bit of the daal, washed it well and put it into the sambar. Now the
sambar is boiling on and on, wondering why the daal is not getting cooked and
instead the sambar was becoming thick, so all I did as to add water and again boil, you know what had
happened the drumsticks and ladies finger got over cooked and mashed and invisible of
the vegetables except the thread like sticks of the drumstick, in between the
daal uncooked worrying me. Finally it
was time for lunch now no more time to
cook. So I just put the tadka and set it on the table for lunch.

My FIL comes to the table and starts his lunch at that time he
just put the sambar on rice all he saw was sticks and mashed ladies finger and
sambar so gooey and finally the great daal uncooked. All he said was to me you don’t
know cooking right. That’s all, poor thing ate a bit of rice with great difficulty.

Then it was my hubby’s turn as he was out and when he came for
lunch my FIL waiting eagerly to see his reactions. He saw the sambar condition and said OMG
whats this soup or sambar, made fun of me so much by telling to everyone in
the family and had a good laugh. Even today whilst writing this post I told my
hubby I am writing my story about the disastrous sambar and there he laughs non
stop.

Then on my FIL taught me
all the dishes he knew and one thing was he encouraged me a lot, always said don’t
worry if you make mistake you will learn and
within few months I started making good food and he would enjoy every
bit of my cooking.

Every Sunday I went home, would go to my mom sit by her side and write
down all the method of cooking to experiment on them J. This
sambar is one such Palakkad specialty of my mom.

During the past few years my sambar is loved
my many people and has got me so many compliments. My mom loves it the most and
says I make it better than her. When my
uncles visit home they insist me to make
the sambar. Even today I dread thinking of my first
experience of cooking.

When I started my blog my daughter insisted that I put down all the recipes on the blog so that it
will be of help to her and she will not
have hard time as I have gone through to learn the recipes. Today
internet and communications is a boon for the upcoming generations in all
aspects.

You all must have a gr8 time reading this post. So here goes my
recipe J, I avoid using any spice powders
for my cooking. Instead prefer to use them in whole and it tastes better too.

Ingredients

Drumstick – 3 big sticks

Coconut – 1 cup

Whole dhanya - 1 ½ tbsp

Methi Seeds – 6 grains

Curry leaves – 3 sprigs

Asafetida – a generous pinch

Red Chillie whole – 6 nos

Cooking oil – 3 tbsp

Tamrind – little for your taste

Tomato – 2 nos.

Tur daal – 1 cup

Turmeric – ¼ tsp

Salt to taste

Mustard – 1 tsp

Red chilli – 2 nos for tadka

Method

Wash the daal and pressure cook to fine and keep it aside

In a kadai add, 1 tbsp oil,
methi, asafetida, red chilli, dhanya, 1 sprig curry leaves and fry for couple
of minutes and then add the grated coconut and fry till the colour changes to brown. Put off the
flame and let it cool and then grind to fine paste.

In another vessel add the drumstick, turmeric, salt, water and
allow it cook. When half done add the daal & tomato let this cook for 5
minutes.

Time to add the masala and let this boil well, add the
tamrind pulp as much as you need and let
this boil well and put off the flame. Check the salt at this level.

In another small pan, add 2
tbsp oil, mustard, broken red chille -2 nos and pour this on the sambar and garnish with curry leaves.

Wonderful post Lathaji, Made me laugh too.. because I went through the samething because my hubby is a typical south Indian and I was very new to all these south indian cuisines. Especially this sambhar. Took a while to learn from my Mil. Hahaha.. Want to try your version too..

Lols Latha.. Really enjoyed reading your post.. Reminded me of my cooking disaster when I was learning cooking... I had made kadhi for the first time.. And was following my written recipe... When I made it, the colour was really unusual ...(I don't know what colour to call it..) My brother and mom asked me what is this and how come your kadhi is so thin just like a soup... But then it struck to me that I had made the kadhi without Yoghurt which is supposed to be the main ingredient...hehe.. Thanks for bringing a smile to my face and bringing back some old memories... Drumstick Sambar looks really supper yummy Latha :-)

thank u so much lathaji for linking this to my event... i also couldn't help but laugh, seriously... we all go through this sometime or the other, but i feel todays' generation is so lucky that they have youtube and loads of bloggers like us to help them!!! :)

Wonderful post latha really made me laugh .. Yes we do have disasters in the beginning but your are fabulous cook now :) Thank you for sharing such an lovely story with us :) Now the sambhar looks perfect and delicous dear :)

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About Me

Hi,

I welcome you all to my blog and I hope you will have good time viewing and trying out my recipes.

Cooking is my passion and I love trying out new recipes. Each of the recipes put up here are homemade.

Having a blog was like a "dream come true" for me and all the credit goes to my daughter who is my inspiration for starting this blog. Infact the recipes put up on the blog here are tested on my hubby and daughter..........I strongly recommend that you guys should go ahead and try out all these recipes.

Please do leave all your valuable suggestions and comments as I would love to hear from you all...:)